A review by leevoncarbon
Strangers at My Door by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

4.0

This book teaches not through social or political theory or analysis of biblical texts, but through stories. It is such a simple plan: identify yourself as a hospitality house, open your door to whoever knocks, and believe that Jesus accompanies every guest. The neighbourhood in which the author and his wife chose to live means that most of their guests come with all sorts of brokenness but one of the startling things is how the grace of God remains evident in the darkest places, how it is the well ordered together people who often have the most to learn, and how love never fails to make a difference. There is no idealism in this book. Dostoevsky is quoted knowingly at the end of the book: "Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams". It is hard for me to imagine my wife and I moving into a troubled neighbourhood, but I can imagine us opening the door of the house where we live a little more readily.